oyster stew

The secret to this soup is the gentle cooking of the oysters and using any of the juice leftover from the oyster pottle in the stock – NEVER throw away that taste of the sea.

ingredients

2 tbsp finely chopped onion

olive oil

1 large potato

1 carrot finely chopped

1 stick celery, finely sliced

1 cup fish stock or water

2 cups milk

2 tbsp flour

2 tbsp butter

12 fresh oysters

any liquid from the oysters

2-3 tbsp freshly chopped parsley

1. Cook the onion very gently in the olive oil with the potato carrot and celery, when it almost appears to catch add a small amount of stock so the vegetables can cook and soften. You can add 1 tbsp of the parsley at this stage. Blitz with kitchen whizz.

2. Add the milk and then cream the flour and butter together and add in small pieces to the hot mixture, just take off the heat for a few minutes to do this.

3. Back on the heat, stir until thickened. Cut up 3-4 of the oysters and add to the mix with their juice and turn off the heat.

4. Add the whole oysters, cover them in the hot mix and heat through gently – serve immediately with chopped parsley. The heat from the soup will poach the oysters – you do not need this process to be very long.

Check seasoning

You can add a squeeze of lemon juice

The colour of my soup today was slightly enhanced by the addition of some Old Bay Seasoning I bought back from the US – but even a punch of curry powder would work but take care not to kill the oyster flavour.